Creating and keeping an emotional connection with your shopping centre

Olive Ndebele, general manager of Menlyn Park Shopping Centre.

“The most significant positive impact of a great customer experience is long-term loyalty,” says Olive Ndebele, GM of Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria. “One of the many challenges facing shopping centres today is how to give their customers this great experience consistently.

“The key to delivering a great customer experience, is finding out what your customers need and want, and giving it to them. Situated in the country’s executive capital, with its 100+ foreign embassies and consulates, our customers include residents of all the surrounding and outlying suburbs of Pretoria, a large contingent of foreign business people, diplomats and holidaymakers and keen shoppers from other African countries, such as Nigeria and Mozambique, where big-name items are hard to find. We have put together a comprehensive tenant mix that caters to all our shoppers.”

However, having great tenants does not necessarily automatically translate into a great customer experience.

“We live in a dynamic age of technology and innovation, and one in which caring for our customers has never been more important. An unhappy customer can instantly share a negative experience with thousands of people through social media – but so can a customer who has had great service. Customers are always looking for ways to feel valued and ways to make their lives easier.

“Delivering this comes down to the personal touch – the one thing that online shopping cannot compete with against the bricks-and-mortar version. As an example, the Centre’s ‘lightbulb’ concept of a ‘concierge service’, during the last phase of the refurbishment, when friendly, efficient and well-trained staff members were stationed at busy nodes in the mall to answer queries and give directions, spoil shoppers with refreshments and generally make sure that everybody felt genuinely cared for.”

Many of today’s shoppers regard a visit to the mall as an outing in its own right, during which they not only treat themselves to luxury purchases and perhaps see a movie, play games or have a meal with family or friends – there are still those who want to simply ‘get in and get out’.

“Career and business people do not regard grocery shopping as a social event. They are trying to get a lot done in often very limited time. For these shoppers, convenience and accessibility are paramount and that is the essence of the thinking behind the mall’s ‘Grocery Avenue’, with a Checkers Hyper, a Food Lovers Market and a Pick n Pay alongside each other in one section, with easy access to parking. The Pick n Pay offers even more for the busy shopper: banking services, drawing social grants, booking flights and car hire.”

There are options, too, for those who like to shop at leisure while they stock their kitchen cupboards. “There’s an in-store coffee shop and a take-away burger bar in the Checkers Hyper and a seated eating area in the Food Lovers Market,” concludes Ndebele.

The 37-year-old four-level Menlyn Park mall has just undergone a two-year, R2-billion, three-phase expansion and refurbishment project that has positioned it as the largest shopping centre in Africa. Aside from an expanded fashion wing, hosting a range of international and local fashion brand stores, there is the reconfigured two-level food and entertainment hub that includes 3D Nu Metro cinemas and the Fun Company centre and a number of restaurants situated around a beautiful outdoor piazza. In addition, acknowledging the ever-growing number and diversity of its client base, a prayer centre will cater to Pretoria’s growing Muslim community.